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Press Office - Press Releases
WHAT'S ON TV GOES MOBILE!
August 15, 2006
What's on TV, the UK's favourite TV weekly brand, is launching What's on TV mobile allowing TV fans across the UK access to the latest TV news and programme listings through their mobile phone.
Launching in September, What's on TV mobile will be available on any wap-enabled mobile phone, providing free* content including TV listings, Pick of the Day, Top Films, Soap Gossip, Soaps - The Story So Far and Soaps - Coming Next. There is a search facility, TV Search, so users can look up the times of their favourite shows and they can set their TV region to receive the correct BBC and ITV1 listings.
What's on TV mobile will also have paid-for elements including ringtones and wallpapers from TV favourites such as Lost, Desperate Housewives, The OC and One Tree Hill. SMS alerts are available for future soap plotlines, the latest soap gossip and reminders of when a programme or film is due to air.
Philippa Brown, IPC tx managing director, says: “What's on TV is the UK's favourite TV weekly and is a very powerful brand that translates well onto the mobile platform. Our readers are huge TV fans who will really value the ability to access the latest soaps gossip and listings via their mobile.”
Miles Ross, IPC Media head of mobile, adds: “There's a lot of excitement surrounding digital innovations in TV right now, such as mobile TV and TV via the internet. Combined with the massive growth in mobile use, this makes it the perfect time for What's on TV, the UK's favourite TV weekly, to launch What's on TV mobile.”
What's on TV's technical partners for What's on TV mobile are Filmnight Digital and TV Genius. Filmnight Digital is responsible for the end user design, creation, and hosting of the mobile service, incorporating up-to-date listing and search information from TV Genius, the TV search engine and mobile specialist . What's on TV has licensed the search engine from TV Genius. Listings content is supplied by PA Entertainment.
“Listings information services on mobile is becoming increasingly popular, so it seems a natural progression to take the strong and trusted brand of What's on TV onto mobile,” says David McDonald, head of mobile at Filmnight Digital, “We are working closely with IPC tx to ensure that we deliver the best service possible and provide an ever expanding and evolving content offering to consumers.”
Tom Weiss, CEO of TV Genius said: “We develop products for the discovery of TV content. Our mobile ready EPG feed, including full text searching and reminders have been integrated with IPC tx's content publishing programme. We are looking forward to developing this service to deliver a range of additional content for What's on TV over the coming months.”
What's on TV mobile will be frequently promoted within What's on TV and other TV weeklies within the IPC tx portfolio. To subscribe, readers need to send a text with a supplied short code to receive a waplink to the What's on TV mobile site.
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Editors' Notes
* There is an internet add-on cost for 3 subscribers to access off portal sites, including the new What's on TV mobile site.
What's on TV is Britain's best-selling magazine, providing nearly four million readers a week with a great value mix of entertaining TV features, the latest soap news and gossip, puzzles, competitions and easy-to-use TV listings.
IPC tx is the TV weeklies division of IPC Media. At the heart of British television, tx is the home to the UK's biggest-selling magazine, What's on TV. Its market-leading portfolio also includes TVTimes, TV & Satellite Week, Soaplife - and IPC's latest launch, TV easy. Its magazines are in the fabric of the lives of millions of consumers across the UK.
